


let the ocean wash away

by hardboiledmeggs



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Sharon Carter, Bucky Barnes Feels, F/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:56:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardboiledmeggs/pseuds/hardboiledmeggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharon Carter-related ficlets, from prompts submitted through Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**The prompt** : Steve/Sharon: Reacting to the other one crying about something

* * *

 

“She was ninety-five, you know?” Sharon tells him, smiling even though her lower lip quivers, “Most people don’t even live that long.”

Steve’s brow furrows. The chartered plane rumbles beneath them, on its way from London to Berlin. He had found her alone, curled in on herself, with her hands clenched and tears on her face. There was nothing he could have done besides take the seat next to her and ask her what was wrong.

“Yeah, but it’s…” he starts, not sure how to console her, suddenly remembering a time when Peggy herself had consoled him in the wake of a death. He feels a sharp pang of inadequacy.

“It’s stupid,” she finishes for him, gesturing towards her tear-stained face and sniffling. He can tell she’s embarrassed and covering for herself with bluster. He wonders if that’s the kind of reputation he’s earned - as someone who disdains emotion, who makes others feel uncomfortable about their own feelings. He wonders if her discomfort isn’t about him at all - if hiding herself is something she’s learned, like Peggy, after a career in offices filled with men ready to sneer at a woman’s show of emotion.

“It’s nothing we didn’t expect, right?” she goes on, “Nobody lives forever.”

Steve takes a deep breath. He watches her for a moment: her eyes are watery, her lips are pursed, her gaze is stoic, is fixed on the tiny porthole to her side, looking at the clouds outside to distract herself. He can see the fight she’s waging, and it’s horribly, horribly familiar.

He presses the palms of his hands together, willing away his own uncertainty, willing himself to be as strong in close quarters as he can be on a field of combat.

“It’s always…it’s always a surprise, though.” He gives her a slow, rueful smile and clears his throat. “My mother was sick for…a long time. Years. And it still hurts like hell.”

Sharon turns, looks up at him, sympathetic and curious.

“Just—“ Steve hesitates for a moment, then lifts his arm and nods his head, “Come here.”

Sharon blinks, then leans in instinctively, letting Steve fold his arm around her shoulders as her head rests on his chest. With Sharon pressed close against his side, Steve feels the slight start of something warm build in the center of his stomach. He feels Sharon breath in and out, feels time slow down for a long moment; then he feels her shift slightly and sit up, pushing herself upright with a hand on his shoulder.

He wishes she’d meet his eyes, but she won’t. She looks flushed and self-conscious, and Steve wishes he knew why. He can sense untold depths inside her, and that, too, is familiar.

“We’ll be landing soon,” she says. And then, more quietly, “Thank you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**The prompt:** Steve/Sharon: He saves her ass for once instead of the other way around. For [sevenfoxes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes).

* * *

 

Thought it was time I returned the favor,” Steve says with an over-confident smile as he runs alongside Sharon back to the quinjet. Behind them, he can hear HYDRA thugs chasing them – heavy footfalls and jangling weaponry.

Sharon doesn’t miss a beat. “Is that what you call this?”

Steve’s glad his helmet hides half of the flush that breaks across his face. Admittedly, they’re both covered in smoke and ash from the grenades that broke apart the building Sharon was being held in and,  _admittedly_ , they both have several nasty scrapes and bruises that  _could possibly_ suggest that Steve and Sam’s rescue attempt didn’t go quite as smoothly as they’d planned.

They clamber together up the ramp and into the jet as Sam kicks the engine into gear. They’re in the air before Steve finally turns to Sharon. She’s propped up against the jet’s hull. Her skin shines with sweat. At her temple, her hair is matted with blood. 

Steve feels a rush of guilt and self-consciousness. He pulls the helmet off his head, crosses his arms, shifts from one foot to the other, and frowns earnestly. 

“Maybe if we’d gone in the back way—“ 

Sharon smiles, a little breathlessly, and shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she gestures to her forehead, “Besides, you’ve got a pretty good track record going through the front door.”

Steve pulls a face, the way he always does when his legacy precedes him. But Sharon’s seen his work first-hand and he knows that what she knows about him is based on more than that.

“Thank you,” she says to him, nodding her head slightly. She looks at him with a kind of familiarity and affection that sets something fluttering in his chest. Steve clears his throat and struggles to stay cool and professional, telling himself to ignore the urge to lean into this, to let himself be soft and open for her.

“Anytime.”


	3. Chapter 3

**The prompt** : Steve/Sharon: Steve can't find Sharon after she's gone into hiding and he's starting to panic.

* * *

 

 

They set up shop in Wakanda – Steve, Sam, Wanda, Scott and Clint. They don’t call themselves  _Avengers_ , they are inordinately careful  _not_ do to so. But it comes to feel something like family, the five of them together. Steve wonders about the rest of them, the ones he left behind. He thinks about Natasha and Tony, Vision and Rhodey, and about Bucky who both is and isn’t still with them.

Most of all, he thinks about Sharon.

He is so deeply indebted to her, and so far beyond ever being able to repay her. She had given him her words, her strength, her cunning, her resourcefulness, and in return he had destroyed her career and forced her underground. 

He thinks about the way she kissed him – with their bodies pressed together and her lips smiling against his – and burns with guilt and wanting.

It seems infantile and impersonal at best and dangerous at worst, but Steve finally decides to use the untraceable phone T’Challa had given him to send Sharon a text. 

 _Are you there?_ he types and sends, feeling stupid and sick with worry.

For three days, she doesn’t answer. For three days, Steve sends lone question marks through the ether than exists between the useless piece of metal and plastic in his hand and the one in hers.

_?_

_?_

_?_

And then

 _yes_.

Steve’s heart sings. 

_Are you okay?_

_yes. are you?_

_Tough question._

_answer it anyway_

_Yes._

_good_

_I’m sorry_  he writes and then, after a moment of hesitation,  _I miss you._

It’s a long while before she responds, and Steve isn’t sure whether he should worry that he’s compromised her phone or that she doesn’t return the sentiment. Something inside his chest crumbles; he swallows hard and stares at his phone as it gives another soft _ding_.

 _me too_ appears on the screen. It’s the last he hears from Sharon for months and months, but, he knows then, it’s enough.


	4. Chapter 4

The prompt: Sharon/Bucky: Sex with clothes half on/panties still on, from [this meme](http://hardboiledmeggs.tumblr.com/post/144571447547/so-that-sex-tropes-thing-looks-like-a-really-good). For [katertots](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katertots/pseuds/katertots). 

[ _This is a PWP. I don’t know how we got to this point in the story. It's sometime post-CACW, though. Let’s just roll with it._ ]

* * *

 

 

All Bucky can think about is how fragile she is. He knows, objectively, that she isn’t ( _she is_ _shockingly tough and resilient_ ) – but he can still hear the _crack_ her body made as he flung her through furniture that broke beneath her like kindling. She’d been as light as a doll in his deadly hands. The thought of that still makes him shudder, too afraid of himself for words.

 

Now, though, she moves as though she’s trying to prove him wrong, to show him that she can give as good as she gets, and he scrambles to keep up. He kisses her like Bucky used to kiss ( _the Winter Soldier never kissed anyone_ ) – sweet and underpinned with raw lust, enough to scandalize the daughters of antique Brooklyn’s bourgeoisie, but not enough to destroy the reputation of the best student athlete in the borough. Sharon pushes him, though. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his hips, grinding against him until he's hard and flushed and sweating through his shirt. 

 

For all that she can throw a mean right hook, Sharon might be the softest thing he’s ever felt. Her skin, her hair, her mouth – even her blouse is silk. Bucky feels like he could drown in her, feels himself rutting and rubbing against her like a fumbling teenager. She rolls her hips against his and sucks on his tongue and Bucky nearly comes in his pants.

 

It would be enough to just kiss her ( _he never knew how his arms ached just to hold a woman_ ), but the thought of that pricks at a strange sense of carnal chivalry. He wraps his metal arm around her waist, pulling her against him as he reaches for the button at the front of her pants. Bucky slides his hand between warm skin and smooth cotton and presses his fingers between her legs. She gasps and arches against him, then twists and writhes and soaks his fingers.

 

Bucky buries his face against the side of her neck, breathing her in, working his hand harder against her to avoid thinking too much about how easily he could have killed her just a few months ago. Sharon comes with a shout, digging her fingernails into his shoulders, bucking her hips, shivering and fluttering around him. And then, for all his attempts at willpower, he’s falling apart too, spilling hot and sticky against the backside of his button fly.

 

He sags, spent, and rolls to her side, filling up the space next to her on the grubby motel mattress they had landed on together. 

 

He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and he can feel Sharon smile. She turns her face to him and he looks at her, and he’s right. She’s lit up from the inside and it’s because of him. Stretching out on the bed, he feels like a crumpled piece of paper that’s been spread out again; he catches himself smiling back at her, feeling sleek and loved. He feels something welling up inside him, just underneath his ribs.

 

“We oughta make a habit out of this,” she says breathlessly, and Bucky laughs, his voice coming out thick and wet, because for once he can’t help being happy.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Steve/Sharon, Sharon has a tattoo, and it drives Steve crazy.
> 
> This was probably supposed to be smut, but it's sad, sad angst instead :D

“What’s this?”

 

“What’s it look like?”

 

Steve’s hands are spread wide on either side of Sharon’s waist, framing her body; he’s pushed the hem of her shirt up, kissed her from her navel to her sternum, and now, suddenly, stopped.

 

They’ve been doing this for weeks now: fooling around like kids whenever they have a spare moment. It’s slow and easy and uncomplicated.

 

Now, Steve traces the black and white lines of the pair of peonies – one large, one small – tattooed on the left side of Sharon’s ribs; he bites at his lower lip. Sharon wants to move, wants to press against his touch, wants _more_. Instead, she keeps her body still, letting Steve look in the dim lamplight.

 

“How long have you had it?” he asks.

 

“A few years,” Sharon shrugs a shoulder; when he looks up at her, she looks away. “I got it after my mother died.” The words come out in an uncontrollable rush, and Sharon immediately cringes. She’s pretty sure that this moment – in the middle of the night, sprawled on the ratty sofa in Steve’s safe house, with his hands up her shirt and her legs around his hips – is the worst possible time for this conversation.

 

Out of the corner of her eye she can see his brow furrow. His eyes turn wide and sympathetic. Sharon hardens her expression and gives a minute shake of her head. She knows he’ll see it, and she knows he’ll respect it: _This is off limits_.

 

“Did it hurt?”

 

Sharon’s eyes snap to his. She isn’t sure if he’s still asking about the tattoo, or if he’s asking about her mother, and the uncertainty makes her chest tighten. But there’s something measured in his gaze, something deeper than sympathy. And either way, the answer is the same.

 

“Yes.”

 

He nods. He knows. He knows about finding life in pain, about what it means to want to test yourself, even in ( _especially_ in) the midst of grief.

 

Steve moves up her body, weaving his fingers in her hair and kissing her, gently at first, then long and slow and deep, until the tightness in Sharon’s chest relaxes and she feels dopey and happy instead of anxious.

 

When he pulls back, he looks down, moving aside the fabric of her shirt again to look at the tattoo.

 

“Are you shocked?” Sharon gives him a little half-smile.

 

“No,” Steve murmurs, looking back up at her. He smiles. “It’s beautiful.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sharon/Bucky: Pining after each other but not knowing how to say it

Bucky’s defrosted for a week, holed up in a Wakandan hospital ward, before he finally sees a familiar face. He had half-expected ( _hoped_ ) that Steve would come for him first, but instead it’s Sharon, who introduces herself to him with a polite smile despite the fact that he’d nearly killed her just a year earlier. Steve, she tells him, is too far underground to travel, and the idea of that makes Bucky’s heart feel like a ball of lead.

“You two,” he starts in a hoarse voice. He examines her face, trying to remember through the haze of his recent re-animation. Her eyebrows raise expectantly, and Bucky feels his face turn hot. “You’re together.”

Sharon smiles again. Polite. Measured. “No,” she says quietly, “In Leipzig, that was just…goodbye. I think.”

He frowns. Something wells up inside him – an old impulse, a familiar two-step. 

“That fuckin’ punk,” he hears himself say, and it feels like a term of endearment.

Surprise and relief pass over Sharon’s expression. She laughs, and it sounds like music.

* * *

She visits him every day for a week. She brings him cups of coffee with too much milk and not enough sugar, but he never complains. Wakandan scientists send him through a battery of tests while she sits at his side, thumbing through magazines and giving him occasional reassuring smiles that make him forget how to breathe. 

Sharon isn’t the kind of woman he thought he’d like. He’s seen what she can do in close combat – her utter fearlessness and strength – but she’s also delicate and feminine in a way that makes him feel misshapen, out-of-place and ugly. The idea that he could belong in the same room, in the same place, in the same  _universe_  as her seems outrageous. Her tailored blouses and pink mouth, her long hair and lavender perfume, her dark, kind eyes and grace – everything about her overwhelms him.

He wonders if she’s the kind of woman he liked before, when he was truly Bucky Barnes, but the only girls he can remember from back then are brassy, bawdy dames that made Steve blush and roll his eyes. He wonders if, perhaps, Sharon is the kind of woman he likes  _now_ , now that he is again Bucky Barnes, only torn apart and put back together in pieces.

Every day, he waits for her, with nerves pooling in his gut, terrified that he’ll say something hideous to her, or that she’ll realize what a monster he is and leave him alone. Some nights, he dreams of her and wakes up hard, aroused and confused and ashamed. He jerks himself off for the first time in seventy years and tries ( _and fails_ ) to think of anything but Sharon.

* * *

When the Wakandan scientists attach the vibranium arm they’ve crafted for him, Sharon sits in a chair next to him. The arm fits into the metal socket at his shoulder with a sickening  _thunk_ , and Bucky cringes, his eyes welling up against a flood of pain and horror. Sharon grabs his hand – the flesh and blood one – and squeezes. When he looks over at her, her eyes are wide and afraid. The thought of that – that she’s afraid for  _him_ , that she’s worried about him – dulls the sharp twist and pull as the arm integrates itself into his body.

* * *

 

She stays for another week. And then another. But after nearly a month, she tells him that she has to leave, that she shouldn’t even have stayed this long. Bucky listens to her quietly, feeling dumb and disappointed and unsure.

“I wish—“ he starts to say, and stops. The words sound strange and unearned. But Sharon smiles at him and he presses on. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“I’ll come back,” she says, and she reaches up to press a kiss to his cheek. She lingers, just for a moment, just long enough for Bucky to bring his hand up to rest on the curve above her hip. His eyes close; he breathes her in and quiets the urge to hold on to her, to try to keep her. Sharon leans back, placing her hand on his cheek, where her lips had been just a moment earlier.

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Submit Sharon/Steve or Sharon/Bucky prompts on [tumblr](http://hardboiledmeggs.tumblr.com)!


End file.
